Shaun Mulligan journey – Kooee Food Snack Company
https://www.kooeesnacks.com.au/
Entrepreneurial journey told by six students
Story written by Qinxuan Li
My name is Shaun Malligan and I am one of the co-founders of Kooee, a healthy and organic-based company that offers beef jerky and other high-protein snacks. My journey to stardom and entrepreneurial success was a long one, and it all started with passion as the key ingredient. First, I should talk about how we got our name. It comes from the call the Australia First Peoples made to communicate across vast distances, Kooee. Our beef jerky, unlike other products on the market, contains no artificial ingredients, sugar or nitrates (Kooee, 2022).
We have regional and national aspirations. Kooee is originally from Tasmania, Australia, but we began in New York City with the help of Andy Fist. Fist worked with me, and at the time of Kooee’s inception—even before the company formally got going—I became obsessed with making beef jerky (Kooee, 2022). How could I not love the sweet, sour and salty taste of beef jerky, a Western classic when it comes to beer snacks. I remember during my college days, walking around after a night out and looking for a convenience store. It was always the 7/11, open 24 hours a day, that had beef jerky. I distinctly recall wanting to reproduce this snack and getting into it while acknowledging that my combined Business and Economics degree likely already offered me the tools and background to start a business.
There were several key ingredients to Kooee’s success. These included an ability to communicate with stakeholders and supporters, creation of a website, leveraging entrepreneurial capacity and acumen to discover the niche sector for health and protein foods, as well as bridging the gap between New York and Tasmania through remote collaboration. I have mastered so many different skills required for entrepreneurship, and it has been an incredible journey for my wife and I, alongside the stakeholders and co-founders of Kooee. I believe that some of the critical personality traits I possess that have fostered success include being open to new experiences, sociable, willing to listen to alternative solutions and—first and foremost—patient and resilience.
It is not always easy to start a company. There are uncertainties and setbacks. This happened to us when we began marketing to grocery stores and supermarkets, finding a liquor store took our items first. The moral of the story is that to be an entrepreneur, one must be willing to take risks and build on opportunities, a combination of exploration and exploitation.
Story written by Cheng Zifu
My name is Shaun Mulligan and I am an entrepreneur managing the Kooee Food Snack Company. Since my childhood years, I was always fascinated by the idea of starting and managing a company while ensuring that it succeeds. Starting my company was not an easy task. I had to conduct numerous background checks with all the stakeholders including former prominent businesses to have an idea of what I was doing. I realized that the entrepreneurship journey begins with the idea that you have, and that idea needs to be transformed into action. Therefore, in 2013, I came up with the idea of starting a food company that would serve and provide quality food products to all consumers around the world. I identified the best markets in countries such as the US, Australia, North Korea, and the UK as among my favorite destinations. Soon I realized that for my business to become successful, I also had to identify the strengths and weaknesses of my competitors. Upon undertaking relentless background checks, I discovered that my competitors have adequate suppliers in all their markets. Apart from supplying raw materials, I discovered that their suppliers also help them collect business intelligent data that includes marketing information such as consumer demands and the market price. So I began by mobilizing suppliers in all our markets. Furthermore, I also realized that I had to convince online customers to access services from my company. I need to continuously develop the company’s network, and meanwhile I developed a team that was to connect with these customers, advertise our products and services and collect customer reviews. This tactic has been very useful. We have improved our online consumers and also expanded our customer base. Our social media innovation is helping us to stay one step ahead of our competitors. In my business, I have encountered various challenges. However, the biggest challenge is price competition. Since we offer almost the same products as our customers, the majority of them have started to offer food products at cheap prices to deal with our dominance. Therefore, we have been trying to expand our economies of scale to provide different food products at affordable prices. However, no matter what difficulties I face, as an entrepreneur, I will always keep my original intention of starting a business – making Australia’s healthiest, tastiest high-protein snacks.
Story written by Zixuan Ding
I’m Shaun, the founder of KOOEE snacks. Looking back on my journey of starting KOOEE, I would say 12 years ago is when I first became interested in entrepreneurship. I attended an event where a successful food entrepreneur gave a brief speech. It seemed so exciting to me then, but I hadn’t even realized it could be a career option for me.
My career as a chartered accountant began after I graduated from the University of Sydney with degrees in Economics and Law. After a few years of doing that, I wasn’t too passionate about my job as an accountant. However, I’ve gained a lot of insight into how businesses function and have increased my exposure to the business world through this job. In a way, this gives me the idea of doing something myself.
Making beef jerky was just a hobby at the time, as a big fan of exercising and training. I have always been looking for healthy snacks that can help me recover after exercise, but jerky products on the market always contain preservatives and lots of sugar, so I decided to start making my natural beef jerky. My beef jerky became popular in the office as soon as I took it to work with me. That’s when the idea of launching KOOEE took off.
My co-founder Andy and I met while running in the park. When I told him about my beef jerky hobby, he initially thought I was mad, but after he returned to Tasmania, he realized there was a huge gap for healthy beef jerky in the Australian market. At that moment, we made the decision to drop everything and establish KOOEE! We run our beef jerky business in Tasmania, which is the ideal location for our venture.
The journey of starting a business can be like a roller coaster ride, with ups and downs. There are opportunities that you did not foresee, as well as failures that you weren’t expecting. With perseverance, you can move forward in the right direction. Through my journey, I’ve gained valuable insights from my family, friends, and other entrepreneurs who have helped me develop a brand with an excellent market fit. There is one piece of advice that I can give to those who are considering becoming entrepreneurs: pursue what you are passionate about and be persistent.
Story written by Yanzhang Feng
Outdoor enthusiast and entrepreneur Shaun Malligan founded Kooee, a beef jerky-based snack company with operations in the United States and Australia.
In 2010, in response to the global financial crisis, Shaun chose to relocate to New York and join Ernst & Young as an accountant. There, he gained an initial understanding of how businesses functioned and the key drivers of various industries. To his dismay, the Great Recession caused the majority of businesses to operate cautiously, preferring to preserve capital for the next round of economic shocks.
At the time, Shaun enjoyed making beef jerky, as it provided him with energy during hikes and long walks. His co-workers enjoyed his jerky, so Shaun decided to turn it into a business. Consequently, Kooee was established. Today, the company has two primary product lines: Super Snack and Full Natural, and has developed a presence in two major nations.
Story written by Zhilin Huang
I am Shaun Malligan, the co-founder of the snack brand, Kooee. Our main products are high-protein snacks, including beef jerky and chicken jerky. This sound-unique name comes from the Australian bush call: it was a call first made by Australia’s Aboriginal Peoples to communicate over a vast distance. Kooee contains our sincere respect for mother nature and our expression of freedom as well. Now you can find Kooee in over 340 grocery stores, like Woolworths, and Coles, and even in liquor stores like Dan Murphy’s.
Kooee started by providing nutritious snack packs for people doing sports or hiking. This idea was inspired by my personal experience: back in my days in New York, I was looking for a healthy snack pack for me to bring with me during hiking. This was an opportunity for me to make the snack pack by myself. My co-workers in New York were the first group of my customers. The reason why I started Kooee back in Australia was that the market in the US was much more mature than in Australia. Also, our biggest competitor ended up being bought by General Mills, which is a big American food company. The first product was a package of beef jerky, nuts and dried food that is convenient to bring when exercising. The package design was not simply doing an addition to put everything together. Instead, due to the different moisture requirements of different components, we created a new way of package. It is cheerful that positive feedback about the package design was received from customers. It was unexpected that one of our initial customers in Tasmania was about to open new Dan Murphy’s there, and would like to introduce Kooee’s jerky pack. The sales channel was broader rather than focusing on the grocery stores.
I was not born to be a start-up entrepreneur in the food industry. Instead, I spent years at business and law school and worked at the EY transaction advisory group in New York. These experiences provided me with a view of how a business works and what is essential for a business. Also, an entrepreneur program in Tasmania provided a precious opportunity for me to get involved in farmers’ markets with a warm and supportive community.
To the young to-be entrepreneurs, I would like to say, take your own path and do not rush into the lane. Everything could happen and being able to resist the best and the worst outcome is crucial for an entrepreneur. Start with your passion and implement it with your prudence.
Story written by Jenny Jin
Every time I step on the top of the mountains, I felt all the exhaustion was beaten by the exhilaration. All these views out there everything is worth it.
After I graduated, I became a chartered accountant. This is where I have learnt how a business work and run. It was a good experience for me. However, I felt like the undertaker of the business world. I want to do something where I’m something growing, I thought about doing something myself. If you ask me twelve years ago this is what I’ll be doing, I wouldn’t believe it.
When I first start, it was just a hobby to me, I want to find something, for me when I was hiking – a healthy snack. When the pandemic starts there are import restrictions, I couldn’t get the usual snacks I got from the states. I started making myself.
I caught the wave of everyone wanting something healthy and high protein. I want to combine nuts, dried fruit and jerky. Physically they couldn’t be put together, the difference in water between these three ingredients can end up with soggy nuts and really dry jerky. I had this very unique design. There was nothing like it in the market. The bag came with a strip in middle, so the ingredients were separate until you opened the bag. That separating wall would open up, you are able to enjoy the mixing ingredient.Sadly, the competitors in US, these large company have copies from us. We couldn’t survive from the competition.
The market was really different from the state and Australia. It’s much more immature, we have changed and launched something else. Our first factory was located in Tasmania, we are aiming health focused product. Thinking of getting into the health store. Out of blue, the first opportunity came. Unexpected, it was the biggest liquor store in Australia. Never thought about beers and jerkies can go together this well. They became our biggest customer by far.